Saturday, May 7, 2011

Finally Up

So far in the previous trips there have been hindrances in various forms. Whenever all is set to go to a new place, something or the other comes up, be it racial attacks, or some volcano in Iceland. No I am not going to Libya this time, but an Air India pilots' strike kept the worrying part in us engaged. But the mood being down has got nothing to do with all this. It is because, I have been saying farewell to a lot of people of late. Great men they will become, but we don't know when our paths will cross next.

And of course, it all started with a major hiccup, because on the 17th of December I got two letters. The first one went as follows:

"Dear Arnab Dhabal,

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that your application to the MITACS Globalink internship program was successful.  Please see the attached document for more details on this internship award.
Please confirm your acceptance of this internship by email to Megan Mercer, Programs Specialist, MITACS Globalink at mmercer@mitacs.ca no later than January 7th, 2011.
Please note that the MITACS office will be closed from December 18th to January 3rd, 2011, inclusive.  Any correspondence sent during that time will be answered when the office re-opens in January.
Congratulations again and we look forward to seeing you in Canada in the summer of 2011!

Kind regards,
Melinda Benn, B.Sc., M.Sc.
Program Specialist
-------
"
I go to sleep with Canadian dreams. Next morning I open the mailbox and find a mail from the MITACS director, and it said:

"Dear Arnab Dhabal,

Thank you for your application to the MITACS Globalink Internship Program.  We regret to inform you that you have not been selected for this highly competitive program.  We received many high-quality applications for a limited number of positions and had to make some difficult decisions.
We wish you success in your future endeavours, and thank you again for your interest in MITACS.

Kind regards,
Arvind Gupta
Scientific Director and CEO, MITACS
------
"
In other words, "Dear Arnab Dhabal, you are in a situation" And to add to it, I couldn't even confirm anything for a fortnight until which their office was closed. I had one companion though in Aritra, and possibly we were the only ones in such a situation. Anyway, the reader already knows what the end result was, from the very fact that I have started this blog.

So here I am, about to start my journey to the land of ice hockey, immigrants, northern lights, Robin Scherbotsky and also Justin Beiber...

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